Smoking pot?

[Entlover]

Dr Bradley, I am confused. Some parenting books advocate leaving your kid alone to handle "kids' life issues" as long as they don't have negative effects on his parents' lives. Yours is one of the few that says, get in there and do what you can to stop drug use.
My son is 16, and I am not sure whether he's smoking pot or not. His younger sister says she's seen him smoking it often with his buddies, that he offered her some, and she says he broke into a house to steal stuff which he sold. I suspect this is true but have no proof of any of it. My daughter doesn't want me to confront him as she's afraid of his reaction.
We are in family counseling but so far not making great strides.
You said in another post:"Setting non-drug use expectations for kids is a great way to help them become sober. Being passive about weed is a great way to move a pre-disposition to a flown blown, life-destroying addiction."So it sounds as if we should persuade him to go for a drug assessment. Would you recommend that? What do you mean by setting non-drug use expectations - and how do we do that if we can't tell whether he's smoking or not?

[andersr4]

Hi, After going through what I've gone through with my daughter, yes I'd be very concerned. Yes, I think you should be concerned about him smoking weed and a BIG RED FLAG is "breaking and entering" and "theft". I would talk to the counselor about this and get some direction. If this turns out to be true, then there are some real problems going on that need to be addressed. Take action now, don't sit back and ignore the problem. Andersr4

[Entlover]

Thanks for the reply.
We took him for a drug assessment, he turned out to be very high for pot.We found another counselor he can relate to better and start seeing him next week.
Appreciate the support on this board.